Apple tries to defend its App Store to the FCC

Of course the FCC is primarily interested in its rejection of big, important apps like Google Voice, and not indie developer apps, so Apple was able to gloss over its political censorship of apps like Freedom Time (See section 5, above), and not even include any rejected political content app in its list of “representative applications.”

To me, rejecting an app for speech reasons is much worse than for technological competition reasons, but maybe that’s because I am someone who cares about the first Amendment, something that has been shoved to the back of the bus while greasing the wheels of the free market machine.

2 Responses to Apple tries to defend its App Store to the FCC

Another app recently censored was Ninjawords— an English dictionary. Even though it had already been given a 17+ rating, it was deemed “offensive” bcecause users could type in words like “fuck” and it would give you the definition from wiktionary.com.

This is possibly the stupidest, worst rejection I know of to date. To be consistent, Apple will now have to censor Safari for letting you search google for the same word. But we all know Apple’s not going to be consistent.

That “free market machine” is exactly what enables companies to create products like the one you’re trying to leverage for political reasons. The first amendment has nothing to do with a retailer’s right to choose what they sell. You can’t force a store to stock your product. That would be a nightmare.

I understand where you’re coming from, but you’ll get a lot farther exercising your freedom than trying to get others (which includes corporations) to stop exercising theirs.